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On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno
 
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On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Paperback)

by David Sheppard (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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Customers buy this book with Bowie in Berlin: A New Career In A New Town by Thomas Jerome Seabrook

On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno + Bowie in Berlin: A New Career In A New Town
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Product details

  • Paperback: 504 pages
  • Publisher: Orion (9 Jul 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0752884638
  • ISBN-13: 978-0752884639
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 127,627 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY

'This 450-page biography (written with the help of the famous piss-taster himself) fairly zips along.' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Review

'This 450-page biography (written with the help of the famous piss-taster himself) fairly zips along.' (OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY )

This exceptionally well-written biography duly celebrated [Eno's] great achievements with Roxy, Bowie, Talking Heads and his own solo work in compelling detail.' (UNCUT )

'[An] honourable, authorised attempt to do justice to a mind-bogglingly restless and prolific subject.' (SUNDAY TIMES )

'David Sheppard's authorised biography dispels some of the myths surrounding Brian Eno and provides a compelling case for his importance as artist and thinker.' (WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY )

'An accomplished and sprawling biography reflects Eno's scattershot apporach to life - all over the place but fascinating just the same.' (BIG ISSUE (Scotland) )

Music Book of the Fortnight 'Few enigmas are as hard to unravel as Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, but the Q contributor has done a bang-up job with this 450-page tome'. (HOT PRESS (Ireland) )

'David Sheppard's meticulously researched biography ...[with] the kind of footnote that make this doorstopper such an engaging read.' (INDEPENDENT )

'On Some Faraway Beach provides an extensive introduction to a lifetime of constructive, and very English, pottering.' (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'Sheppard has corralled the many strands of Eno's hectic creative life into a coherent and highly readable account. On Some Faraway Beach will take some beating as a chronicle of one of popular music's few truly original practitioners.' (TOTAL MUSIC MAGAZINE )

'A vivid, well-observed and absorbing biography replete with relevant context and cultural references.' (THE BEAT )

'How do you pin down an enigma like Brian Eno? Music journalist David Sheppard makes a valiant stab at it in this lively biography.' (YORKSHIRE EVENING POST )

'Sheppard's writing is splendidly vivid...a book that sets new standards for rock biography' (GUARDIAN )

'Eno's eclectic career and esoteric personal life make for an entertaining chronicle' (TIMES )
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On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno
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Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Anatomy of a brainbox, 22 Aug 2008
This review is from: On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Hardcover)
Well written, very entertaining, full of gossip and a nice selection of photos. I have the feeling a lot of Eno-facts have already been aired elsewhere (like the infamous meeting of Eno with Bryan Ferry on the stairs at Elton John's Christmas party soon after he left Roxy Music). The descriptions of the first four vocal solo albums are illuminating and done largely in a track by track fashion: read how that sublime album Another Green World came togther. Eno was so prolific in the late 70s/early 80s that this book is invaluable in working out when he did what. There's plenty of insight into the relationship with Talking Heads (makes a good read) and not so much on U2 (which is also good, in a way). Tina Weymouth's take on David Byrne and Eno buddying up, to the extent of wearing similar clothes and smoking the same brand of cigarettes, is a hoot. But most people have nothing but praise for Eno, though Gavin Bryars is rather loathe to ascribe any musical talent to Eno, in no small part I'll be bound due to a question of unpaid royalties for his releases on Eno's Obscure label. An interesting side of Eno that comes out from the experience of Bryars and others is Eno's ability (perhaps unconscious) to take over a project. Thus, Bryars is instrumental in forming the Portsmouth Sinfonia, but then sees their star rise due to their involvement with Eno and the press attention that his stardom in Roxy Music brought with it, to the extent where PS end up effectively seen as Eno's latest pet project! New York avant garde trumpeter Jon Hassell also sees his ideas for making afro-centric ambient music edged out and submerged into what became Byrne and Eno's "My life in the bush of ghosts". And sometimes, Eno appears to have been downright devious, as in sorting out the writing credits for Talking Heads' Remain in Light album.

Unlike a friend of mine, who thinks Eno stopped being interesting in about 1981, I love Eno's later ambient works. But it seems that either Sheppard can't write expansively about later albums or isn't really interested enough to do so, so the last 25 years of Eno's career occupy perhaps a quarter of the book. Admittedly, it's harder to write about a sparce 60 minute solo piece like "Neroli" than AGW with its 14 tracks and multiple guest musicians. The Drop, which isn't such a bad album of juju space jazz in my books, or the Curiosities 1 and 2 collections of studio outtakes that feature "Captain" Bob Fripp, have tracks that could easily have been described in some detail, for sure. The engineer who collated the Curiosities volumes could have been tapped for insight into why certain tracks made the cut. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Eno's recent return to a vocal album, Another Day on Earth, merits a more substantial track-by-track dissection. A key omission, I think, is that there's no description for the curious of the missing tracks from the famously unreleased My Squelchy Life album. Few of those tracks have subsequently emerged through conventional channels. And why won't Eno release Seven Deadly Finns or The Lion Sleeps Tonight through iTunes? I think we should be told. There's also little of a technical nature describing Eno's approach to generative music, nor much information on his favourite synths/software/studio gear beyond the famous "Putney" VCS3 from the Roxy days. I suspect though that, like my friend, most people are interested in the Roxy days, the first four vocal albums and the collaborations with Bowie, John Cale and TH, and this book certainly delivers in those areas.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars I like this book ....it has lots of Brian in it. , 21 Jul 2008
By russell clarke "stipesdoppleganger" (halifax, west yorks) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Hardcover)
Let me lay my metaphorical cards on the table ( metaphorical as well I suppose) and state that I think Brian Eno is a genius . I've said it in other reviews of his work so I see no reason not to say it here. He has produced a body of work that is staggering in it's artistic integrity , complexity and innovation and I can tend to go into gushing fan mode when talking about the domed one. Yet for all this I know absolutely sod all about him as a person so this book is , for me , a god send. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean to say that it's any good ....thankfully though I can honestly report that while On Some Faraway Beach is occasionally over written and obsequiously flattering of it's subject it is an educational and entertaining read for any one interested in this most fascinating of artists.
Everything any budding but discerning Eno-phile could want to know is covered . For instance the younger Eno,s sexual proclivity came as something as a surprise, I don,t know why , it just did. Same for his fathering a daughter at a young age ( who he largely ignored after splitting from her mother ) .The fact he was run over by a car suffering a serious head injury or that her earns £24.50 a week royalty's for "Arena" using his track "Another Green World" for the title music. The fact he is great dancer and created his own dance called "The Static".
Most astonishing is the fact that Eno cannot read or write music ( something we have in common , that and a tendency for catastrophic hair loss) and that his improvisational approach to recording rely,s more on his instinctive grasp of sound and sonic textures. For all that he does posses genuine aptitude for thinking up innovative ways to record and manipulate sound , though as the book points out he's not above pilfering ideas that have gone before and melding them to his own ends.. The chapters on the recording of his solo albums are incredibly intriguing.
The years with Roxy Music are extensively covered as is his fall out with Bryan Ferry which led to Eno as he put it "falling on his sword" ( though it's more of an uncomfortable mutually acceptable parting of the ways) plus there's plenty of text on his relationship with cohorts John Cale, Robert Fripp , Gavin Bryars and Talking Heads amongst many others. His recording work with David Bowie ( the funniest man he knows apparently ) on "Low "and "Heroes" plus his tremendous recordings with Cluster and David Byrne are very well covered too.
The book is predisposed towards his work in the seventies and the early eighties -his most artistic fertile period and rather glances over his later production work for artists like U2 and Coldplay , though I can't say I blame the author for skimming over those associations.
So who is Brian Eno?...a complex polymath, an infuriating nerdish knob twiddler, a pioneering artistic futurist, a talkative esoteric dabbler, a renaissance leading media-genic dilettante ...frankly according to this weighty tome he's all these things and more. Yet for such a prolific , innovative and impishly erudite an artist as Eno this should come as no surprise. What is surprising reading On Some Faraway Beach is that someone decided to take on the task . David Sheppard's meticulously researched book is remarkably thorough and a boon for any Enophile. John Cale once said "I like his records, they all have Brian on them" May I add I like this book ...it has lots of Brian in it.


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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Enotastic..., 26 Jun 2009
By cider glider (Wiltshire, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Hardcover)
Good to see that Fabers have binned that pastel hued dust jacket in favour of something a little more in tune with the subject of the book.

The book is excellent up until Eno starts working with U2, whereupon it speeds up, and we race through Eno's career to the present day. The book doesn't go into much detail about Eno's projects in this period; it reads like "Eno did x, then he did y, and then spent some time doing z". As other reviewers here have noted, this may be because the author doesn't think Eno's later work is worthy of the same attention as his earlier output.

I'd have liked a bit more coverage of Eno's work in the visual arts. This is dealt with in the book, but only superficially.

To end on a positive note, I'd add that while I've followed the Enomeister's activities fairly closely over the past 30 odd years, there were plenty of things about the great man that I learnt in this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Demystifying Eno
So many music biographies so often miss the point via brevity, misplaced gushing praise, or lack of authoritative support. Not so here. Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars my life in the book of ghosts
Another reviewer reckons this biog is over-reverential, but i don't get that sense at all. Sheppard is clearly a big Eno fan, but he doesn't shy away from (relatively) objective... Read more
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3.0 out of 5 stars Patchy, like Eno
If you've never read much about Eno, then you'll probably enjoy this. But if you've read, say, More Dark Than Shark, or A Year With Swollen Appendices, you might find yourself... Read more
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